Armored Heart: Dark Seduction. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Mara’s eyes opened to the sight of her room in the Monastery of Lady Ishara, after a relatively restful night. It was a fairly spartan room. One lead glass window looked out over her native city of Cerene, flanked on either side by writing desks, with one bed against each of the side walls, and dressers flanking the door that led out into the corridors beyond.

In the center of the room, set into the stone floor, was a long prayer mat, running directly from the door to the window. Mara rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stretched, yawning as she did so, then rose from her bed.

Her roommate’s bed was conspicuously empty, she noted. Geordi wasn’t one to wake up a minute earlier than his lessons called for, yet he wasn’t there. Must have found motivation, or a different bed to spend the night in, Mara thought.

She stepped to her dresser, and took out a pair of her formal acolyte’s robes, then discarded the loose shift she’d slept in in favor of it. She gave the discarded pajamas a sniff, decided they were still clean enough to sleep in the next night, then loosely tossed them into the bottom of the dresser for later.

The robes were a simple outfit. The top layer was of thin cotton, and came down to just above her knees, with a red sash about the waist denoting her as a fourth-year acolyte tying it closed, and a thin tunic and shorts under it serving as underwear.

She looked at herself in the dresser’s mirror—it had been fiendishly expensive to buy one for her own room—to make sure she’d tied the sash correctly, and tied her blonde hair back into a tight ponytail. Her blue eyes stared back at herself in the mirror, and after she finished her ponytail, she quickly ran her hands along the sash again to work out a few awkward-looking twists.

That done, she closed the dresser up, and prepared herself for her morning prayers. She didn’t strictly need to pray, yet, but when she first joined Ishara’s church, every single one of the Touched had told her she should get into the habit of doing it every morning, so she wouldn’t forget about it once she did need to.

She was about to kneel on the prayer mat to begin when she noticed the two empty vials on her nightstand. The potions she’d downed last night to help her sleep through the nerves she felt about today had helped, of course, but gods above, she was not about to pray to her Lady with trash in view.

Mara hastily gathered the vials and stuffed them into the satchel she carried while outside of her room, then finally knelt. She looked up, first. The window of her room was clear, save for the mosaic of peach-colored glass at the top, which rendered her Lady Ishara’s sigil beautifully.

A lot of people looked down on that sigil, thinking it too graphic to have a goddess’ symbol so closely resemble a woman’s vulva, but Mara thought it rather appropriate, given Ishara was the Lady of Love and Lust.

By folding her thumb under her ring and pinky fingers, and extending her middle and index fingers, Mara made a sign with her right hand as she looked up at the sigil, marking the beginning of her prayer. She pressed the two extended fingers to the top of her sternum, then ran them down between her breasts, down to her belly. After that, she bowed as deeply as she could, pressing her forehead to the prayer mat before she rose again.

“Bonjour, Madame,” she began in the clipped tones of the divine language. She wasn’t even close to fluent in it, but she’d rotely memorized the sounds of the start of her prayer, and the rest could be in the common Remeran tongue.

“Ishara, Blessed Lady of Love and Lust, I ask you to walk with me, bless me, guide me to new passions, shield me from heartbreak, and be a balm on my soul,” Mara said, and was quickly rewarded by a tingle along her spine, telling her the prayer had been accepted, and that her Lady was listening. “I’m… nervous about today, my Lady,” she continued. “Scared, even. The abbot and other Touched say I’ve nothing to worry about, and I know that they’re probably right, but… that doesn’t help. You answer every heartfelt prayer, even by those who are not remotely worthy of your Touch. I know I should have faith, that I should trust you with all my heart, and I do, but…”

Mara swallowed, and cut the sentence off, bowing again. “Forgive my doubt, my Lady,” she softly said. “I do not doubt you, only myself.” At that, Mara felt a second, much softer tingle along her spine, as if a hand made of cold mist were stroking her back and reassuring her. She could almost imagine a whisper in her ear, telling her it would be okay, and she chose to believe it was her goddess telling her exactly that.

She repeated the sign, again folding her thumb under two fingers as she ran the other two along her chest, then rose from the prayer mat. She donned her satchel and reached for her dresser again, picking up what she believed was her most idiosyncratic possession, propped up against it.

Her glaive.

It was an artifact from her tenure as a city guard, a thinly-curved blade with a single edge about two feet long, on a shaft a little more than twice as long as the blade. A painted wooden scabbard had covered the blade for almost all of her four years spent as an acolyte of Lady Ishara, though she still carried it around religiously.

She had a strap for the weapon, tied just below the blade’s small crossguard on one end, and about halfway down the shaft on the other, and with it, she could wear the glaive diagonally on her back, with the blade up and to the left, and the straps of it and her satchel forming an X shape across her chest.

Equipment secured, she opened the door of her room, and stepped outside, into the serene, incense-rich ambiance of the commons of the monastery. Directly beyond her room’s door laid a narrow corridor with mosaic floors and enchanted blocks of stones for light, lined with the clerical bedrooms on the sunlit side, and rented-out bedrooms on the side built against the baron’s palace, available to any who needed a place to get to know a new lover.

They weren’t particularly popular, frankly. Cerene was a city with many brothels and hostels, and while they weren’t sanctified by Lady Ishara and monitored by her priests, that didn’t stop most people from using them.

Mara quickly made her way down this long corridor, and to the stairs. The stairs up would lead to Abbot Du Bois’ apartment, the fancier guest apartments, and the rooftop greenhouses—but Mara had no business up there. Instead, she went downstairs, to where the bulk of the monastery’s functions could be found. It was… relatively busy out there, and it occurred to Mara that perhaps her sleeping potions had caused her to oversleep, rather than Geordi having gotten up early.

Acolytes and priests went about on their endeavors. Some were collecting books from the library to be used in rituals, lessons, or research, others helping the custodial staff keep the place clean. She wanted help some of them with something, eventually, though her bosy demanded breakfast, first.

Mara crossed the monastery quickly, smiling and nodding in greeting as she passed her peers and superiors, and returned a good-natured but deeply sarcastic “good morning,” from the heavily-tattooed Wilsham with an equally good-natured and sarcastic huff.

She’d definitely overslept.

The dining hall was quite busy, with a mix of the monastery’s residents and visiting faithful inside, lining the tables. The Statue of Ishara at its center held a lot of their gazes, the subtle captivation enchantment upon it catching many of those who weren’t used to living here off guard.

Of the remaining strangers, a disproportionate amount eyed Mara. The glaive on her back was an odd sight on one of Ishara’s faithful as carrying weapons was frowned upon by Isharan orthodoxy, but Mara knew they were wrong to judge.

Her Lady approved of her carrying her weapon. After all, it had been a sword-wielding angel of her goddess—the Heartwarden Seeker—that inspired and encouraged her to devote herself to the goddess. Her and her mortal lover, Lanri.

She shook her head, to clear it of thoughts about them. Mara’s time spent traveling with Lanri, Ithella, and Her Grace Seeker had changed her life, but reflecting on it only made her sad, between having never seen Lanri and Seeker again, and Ithella having followed the fighters of Cerene when King Ashlom called his banners against Adampor a few months ago.

Mara joined the line to the buffet-style breakfast, helping herself to a few slices of the twice-baked bread, along with a scoop of cherry jam, a pear, and a hard boiled egg. She looked around for a seat for a while, and while there were plenty of those, almost all were at tables that were already occupied by several people.

And she liked those people—she really, truly did. But she was in no shape to have polite conversation with any of them, not with tonight’s rituals and all that depended on them to stress her. She was supposed to just relax, to take it easy until it was time to begin, but all the gods, how could she?

As she took a seat and started on her breakfast, she realized even sitting still long enough for that was going to be a trial, so she rushed through it. She ate her rusks with jam quickly, then put her plate with the other dishes, and left the dining hall just as quickly as she could afford. It wasn’t like any of the senior priests in here were actually available to talk anyways—they were all busy preparing the shrine, with its potions, paints, diagrams, and pillows. And even if they hadn’t been busy, there was nothing she hadn’t already asked everyone for advice about.

She was worried she wasn’t worthy, and that was that. She was worried that all of her studies and hard work would come up short, and that her goddess didn’t want her—and until she’d been accepted and Touched, that worry would continue to nag at her.

Mara groaned and resolved to get some fresh air, hoping she’d find something to distract her outside, but accepting that she’d keep worrying as she walked the halls to the monastery’s front gates. She passed the open doorway that she’d go through tonight, to take the stairs down into that shrine, and the smell of incense poured from it particularly richly. That somehow made it even more intimidating, and she quickly kept walking.

A few moments later, she was able to slip through the monastery’s large front door, into the u-shaped courtyard that was flanked on three sides by the monastery, and on the fourth by a wrought-iron fence. The fence had a gate in the middle, though that hadn’t been closed in years at this point, and between it and herself stood another, larger statue of Lady Ishara, naked and facing the city.

She was flanked on either side by massive cherry trees, a gift to the monastery from Her Grace Seeker, and two Cereni city guards stood watch at that open gate. Mara smiled at the sight. They wore their traditional Cereni armor of banded metal and leather, and each held a glaive that came from the same forge as her own. She could talk to them to distract herself.

She walked past the statue of Ishara, and underneath the cherry trees that shaded the courtyard from the summer sun, then cleared her throat to draw the attention of the guards.

A human woman and a dwarven man named Dira and Darheim respectively, they’d both already been serving in the city guard when Mara did, and they both grinned at her when they saw her.

“There she is!” Dira—who must have celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday fairly recently, if Mara recalled correcetly—said. “Greetings, your holy eminence,” she said with a mock bow.

Mara rolled her eyes. “How about just calling me my name?”

“Oh, fine,” said Dira. “But don’t think you’ll ever be free of us ribbing you about leaving the guard to get all holy in your safe monastery.

Mara crossed her arms. “I seem to recall helping you deal with the Bandit Mage before I did so,” she said. “Besides. I still served longer than you have by now.”

“Being a child soldier is hardly something to brag about, Mara,” the woman said, but Mara could only shrug at that.

“Child constable,” she corrected. “Besides, it all worked out.”

There was a brief, awkward pause, and Mara spent it looking around. From where they were standing, they could just about see the city’s largest squares, as well as the relatively newly-built temple of the god of war, Lord Daray. In Ithella’s absence, it was, of course, missing its high priestess. And most of the people that frequented it had volunteered to go to war against Adampor as well, but… it was still relatively busy, compared to the shrines and temples run by other denominations.

“And speaking of child constables,” Mara said. “Has my recruiter been about recently?” The recruiter in question was Mara’s father, who had seen her pressed into the city guard as a teenager when she’d initially been drawn to Lady Ishara’s monastery, and Mara had spent her entire four-year seminary studiously avoiding him.

“Nope,” said the dwarven guard, Darheim. “I ponder he’s given up, frankly. Does he know about tonight?”

Mara eyed him. “Gods, no! Or at least he shouldn’t,” she said. “Hells, how do you know about that?”

The dwarf only shrugged. “Must’ve overheard it.” Mara was not convinced by that answer, but decided not to push it as she realized she’d rather not know how much of the city knew what was in store for her tonight.

“Well, I’m rooting for you,” Dira quietly said. “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

Mara smiled. “I appreciate that,” she softly said. “But I actually came to you guys so I could talk about something that’s not the unspeakable pressure of the most important day of my life.”

“Like what?” asked Dira.

“Anything!” scoffed Mara.

“Well, gossip is that the baroness-consort is pregnant again,” Dira said, as she tilted her head to point at something with her chin. Mara followed the gesture with her eyes, and her gaze quickly found the baroness herself, playing with her and Baron Vattens’ toddler son, protected by two of the palace guards.

The curly-haired woman was only a few years older than Mara, and less than half as old as her husband, but she supposed she couldn’t really judge, as long as they were both happy, which by all accounts they seemed to be. Mara knew the woman was a Talented mage, too. An ever-increasing rarity, thanks to the drafts the baroness’ station and troubled past had let her escape.

She wondered how Lanri would feel about this boy, whether she had processed her grief for her husband well enough by now that she would like to meet her little brother-in-law, and apparently another sibling yet to come. Gods, she hoped she’d get to ask, someday.

“Anything else?”

Dira smiled, and started to rattle off little tidbits, counting them on her fingers. “Dathan’s been passed over for lieutenant of the guard again, Magistrate Greyhaze’s son’s in the lockup for getting drunk in public again, and that giant that’s been living in the forest for the last few years bought one of my dad’s cows yesterday. Again.”

“Riveting,” Mara said, sarcastically. “Any news from the front?”

“Yes, actually,” Dira said with a smile. “Captain Addler is really giving those Adampora what for, I hear.”

Mara smiled, softly. She supposed that was good news. Ithella might be in mortal danger fighting the Lord Sorcerer’s armies, but at least nobody’d told her the elven priestess had gotten killed, yet.

Despite Abbot Du Bois’ insistence that she could relax, Mara spent much of the day doing the same chores she always did. She watered the plants in the greenhouse, cleaned the floor of the monastery’s top story, and helped with the laundry.

She attended a few services, too. The private noon prayer session and the public afternoon sermon in the monastery itself, and an evening prayer at the temple to Lord Daray, just a few streets away. That last one was the only odd one out.

According to the abbot, Mara was allowed and even encouraged to keep the other gods in mind, and it of course only made sense for her to visit the temple for a prayer every other week. However, it had not been two weeks yet. One might think that hearing the Cereni component of the Remeran military was doing well would have put her at ease, and Mara had certainly hoped it would.

The truth was that today’s stress had done a marvelous job of seeping into that good news, and had tainted it with half-mad theories of how Ithella could still be dead or captured. So, she prayed to Daray, too, begging him to preserve his faithful high priestess.

“Mara?” asked Sajan, the orcish priest that ran the year-old little temple in Ithella’s absence.

“Yes?” Mara answered.

“Go home,” he said. “High Priestess Val Gyr will not be served by you wasting away here, I assure you.”

“But—”

The man crossed his arms. “Du Bois warned me you’d have a difficult time of it today, so I don’t hold your presence against you. But you really must leave. I’d wager they’ll be nearly ready to begin.”

Mara nodded sheepishly, and rose from the pew, then turned to leave.

“And good luck, Acolyte De La Cerene,” he added.

Mara hadn’t quite earned that surname yet, though she smiled and nodded at him, anyways before she left. Right now, she was only Mara of Cerene, and tonight’s rituals would either grant or deny her the honor of referring to herself in the divine language like that.

She hasted her way back, quickly crossing the few streets that separated the temple and monastery. She nodded at the guards at the gate, now new recruits she’d not built a rapport with, then ducked into the building.

Du Bois and Wilsham were waiting for her.

Abbot Du Bois was a kind old man, and rather spry considering he’d celebrated his seventieth birthday just before the last winter solstice. Light of skin and a little taller than her, he wore robes very much like Mara’s. Though his lacked the colored sash of an acolyte, and instead were adorned with an amulet of Lady Ishi, depicting her sigil in rose gold, and framed with a circle of silver that served as his badge of office.

“Am I late?” Mara sheepishly asked as she looked past them, into the shrine that would be the day’s focal point

“How could you be?” Du Bois asked. “You’re the guest of honor.”

The older man gestured into the shrine, and Mara nervously stepped through the doorway, then cautiously down the stairs that would lead to where she was to prove her devotion to Ishara. The gods only knew how many of the other faithful that called the monastery home would be there, too.

“Where were you?” asked Wilsham.

“Temple of Daray,” Mara whispered back. “Praying for Ithella.”

“I’m sure Commander Val Gyr is fine,” Wilsham said, knowingly. The title, commander, stood out to Mara. A holdover from his and two other Isharan priests’ assistance to Ithella’s militia, which had left the tawny-skinned man terribly burned on his right arm, the scars of which had led to his by-now-signature tattoos.

Mara’s heart raced, pounding in her chest as she descended the stairs into the shrine. Gods, she was nervous. What if Ishara didn’t bless her? What if she just made a fool of herself in front of the people that would watch and participate in the ceremony? She practically looked forward to the potion she’d have to drink as part of the ceremony, if only something would settle her nerves.

When they got to the landing at the bottom of the stairs, Du Bois gestured at one of the two dressing rooms that were curtained off, rather than the closed doors leading into the large room directly beneath the dining hall.

“Take your underwear and shoes off, then put your robe back on,” he whispered into one ear. “And leave the glaive,” he urged.

Mara nodded at him, then stepped into the dressing room. It was oddly empty, she thought. She’d expected to see the clothes of at least half of a dozen priests and acolyte in here, yet the shelves and benches were all clean and barren.

Over the course of a few minutes, Mara undressed. She briefly paused to regard her muscular physique in one of the mirrors, and imagined how she would look a few minutes from now, covered in runes and glyphs. She… she was looking forward to this, right? Prayers and sex with the others of the monastery in the name of her goddess?

She supposed it didn’t really matter whether she looked forward to it. This was the path to priesthood, and it had been for centuries. If she had to make herself a little uncomfortable to be able to serve Ishara, it would be a small price to pay.

Soon, she re-emerged from the dressing room, barefoot and a little cold. She immediately noted Abbot Du Bois and Wilsham hadn’t undressed, and cocked her head. “Aren’t you two…?”

They both just shook their heads, and gestured to the closed doors, beyond which everyone would be waiting to participate in her Touching ceremony. Mara gave them both suspicious looks, then stepped up to the doors.

She paused for a moment, listening, trying to judge what the other side would be like. It was deathly silent.

“Go on,” Du Bois whispered, encouragingly. “They’re waiting for you.” Mara nodded. She took a deep breath to steady herself, then pressed the doors open, and-

It was almost empty. There were no dozen priests waiting for her, there weren’t any judgemental whispers. There was just a statue of Ishara at the center of the room, one hand raised above her head to hold up the ceiling, and a single, tall figure, dark-skinned and clad in white robes, kneeling in front of it.

“Hello, Femme d’Arme,” Ithella whispered, and Mara’s heart soared to hear that voice. She ran across the stone floor of the circular room as quickly as her feet would carry her, and practically threw herself into the elven high priestess’ arms, giggling manically. They marked their reunion with a deep, passionate kiss, during which Mara held her as tightly as she could.

“I thought you were on the front,” Mara whispered. “That you were fighting.”

The elven priestess grinned. “You didn’t think I’d miss this, did you? That I’d let gods-only-know-how-many touch and prod you to prepare you, and not even keep an eye?”

Mara wasn’t quite sure what to say. She’d absolutely thought Ithella would have to keep at it, and she’d never been happier to be wrong. Looking at the elven priestess, she noticed her purely black hair had grown a fair bit longer than the last time she’d seen her, the tight curls now a springy dome around her head.

“I feel like a fool,” Mara whispered with a little laugh. “I was praying for your safe return in your temple, and you were already waiting for me.”

Ithella’s grin turned into a softer smile. “I guess your prayers were answered, then,” she fondly told her.

“I’ll say,” agreed Mara.

“Are you ready to begin?”

“Begin?” Mara asked. “You… You’re going to participate?”

“No,” Ithella said. “I’m not just going to participate, Mara. I’m doing all of the preparations myself.”

Mara blinked, and tried to prevent herself from looking too stunned. “Y-you… you are? You can do that?”

“Of course I can,” Ithella said with a smile. “Not everyone who devotes themselves to a god does so according to dogma and orthodoxy. Some even do it completely alone. All that matters for this is if you are ready to pledge yourself to Lady Ishara.” There was a long pause, during which Mara glanced at the door she’d come in through, just in time to see Abbot Du Bois smile at her and nod as he closed the doors, leaving only Ithella and herself. “Are you ready, Femme d’Arme?”

Mara nodded.

“Perfect,” purred Ithella.

Mara spent the next several minutes patiently watching as Ithella prepared the ritual with far more skill and care than she would have ever thought one of another denomination was capable of.

She started by ushering both of them out of their robes, as was the custom. Ithella’s dark-as-can-be skin had made the white Isharan robes sing, but Mara was more than content to see her naked after all this time. Her amulet of Daray still hung around her neck, the iron hexagon that was the war god’s sigil framed by the copper ring of a high priestess, and tied on a separate silver chain was a small ring the elf had won years ago in a tournament.

She set bowls of incense around the pair of them in a circle, and lit them all with a single whispered spell, then touched the ring to reach into nowhere, producing a book full of charts and diagrams of humanoid bodies decorated with divine runes, along with the potion and bowls of powders and oils that were necessary for the ritual.

“Were you ever—”

Ithella shushed her with a patient smile. “Let me concentrate, Mara,” she whispered, as she started to mix the powders—copper and gold, Mara knew—with the oil to form a viscous paint that would be toxic were it not for the grace of the gods. “Kneel for me, please,” she added, and as soon as Mara did so, she started to copy the body paint explained in the diagrams onto her body with a brush.

The paint, rich with powdered metals, was frigid to the touch at first, and Mara shivered a little as Ithella painstakingly drew Ishara’s sigil on her chest with it, then moved on to copying the prayer the man in the diagram had painted onto his back.

“Before the divine I am naught. By its grace I am infinite. Without it, I am forfeit,” Mara whispered to herself, translating the divine language of the prayer as she read it. This time, Ithella didn’t object to her speaking.

Mara cast her eyes up as Ithella skillfully worked, staring at the statue of her Lady Ishara. This statue stood directly underneath the one in the dining hall, and one hand touched the ceiling above it, the goddess literally and figuratively holding up the monastery. She knew the statue was enchanted, that it was meant to subtly captivate any who looked at it, and yet that did nothing to diminish the effect.

For weeks now, she’d worried that she wasn’t worthy, that she wouldn’t be good enough. But here, in this moment, she knew she’d been worried for nothing. She was ready, she was willing, she was eager. She would serve Lady Ishara, and Lady Ishara would lend her her strength to do so.

A snap of Ithella’s finger drew Mara’s gaze away from the statue, and towards the priestess. She was holding up a little vial, the potion that would lull her into the stupor needed to fully pledge herself to the goddess. “Already?” Mara softly asked. “You’re not finished yet.”

Ithella smirked. “Yes, I am,” she said, then used her enchanted ring to produce a little mirror Mara could use to look at herself. The priestess was right. Elaborate patterns of paint covered not just her chest, but her belly, arms, neck, and even her face. “Those statues sure are something, aren’t they?” Ithella teased.

Mara nodded, and smiled as she took the potion. Traditionally, she would drink it, then say some prayers, and throw herself at her peers with Ishara’s blessing and guidance, to prove her devotion to lust, and show she surrendered herself to the goddess.

This would be better. Instead of just having sex like animals, she’d get to share this with one she did not only lust after, but truly loved. “Are you ready?” Ithella asked.

Mara looked down at the potion. It was a little vial, no bigger than the pear she’d forgotten to eat. She swirled it around, watching the syrupy liquid move. All she had to do was drink it, and be judged by her goddess. For a few moments she hesitated, those nerves again nagging at the back of her mind, trying to poison her resolve. But as she looked at the beautiful elf that had come all this way to be here for her, and the statue of Lady Ishara herself, she again knew this doubt was nonsense.

So rather than answer the question, she uncorked the little vial, and drank it in two big, sickly sweet gulps. “Gods, that is foul,” she complained. It had the burn of alcohol and the tingle of dazeweed to it in her mouth, and it didn’t take long for the magic within the potion to start to affect her. “W-woah,” Mara mumbled, as the colors in the room became dull, and the world started to spin.

Ithella knelt beside her, and gave her a reassuring, encouraging nod. “Go on,” she urged, with a head tilt to the statue of Lady Ishara.

Mara’s thoughts slowed to a crawl, as if they were all struggling to wade through the thick syrup that was the potion. It took a few moments for her to parse what Ithella’s gesture even meant, but she eventually looked at the statue.

It. Was. Beautiful.

The room had turned gray and dull, but the statue of her Lady was vibrant as ever. Lady Ishara’s body was rendered in rose gold, decorated with copper accents, and she was gorgeous. Mara made a sign to begin her prayer, and when she looked down at her hand to make sure she was doing the gesture right, she realized she, too, had that brilliance to her, as her fingers and the backs of her hands had been decorated with runes the same colors as the statue.

She chortled at the sight, then finished the sign, and bowed before the statue. “Bonsoir, Madame,” she whispered to the statue, and the goddess beyond it. As if on cue, Ithella placed the book of diagrams in front of Mara, then rifled through the pages until she got to the right prayer. Mara noted the elf, too, still had some vibrance to her, the slight brown cast of her dark skin a great contrast against the grays of the world around them. She fondly smiled at her—it would have taken her ages to find the right page with her thoughts swimming like they were.

After a few moments of hesitation, Ithella pointed at the right passage, and whispered “go ahead,” spoken in the divine language, just as the prayer would be.

“Will you say it with me?” Mara asked, sincerely. She… she knew it wouldn’t do anything for Ithella, but… It just seemed romantic to recite the prayer together.

Ithella considered that, then nodded. She moved to kneel just beside Mara, and then pointed at the right passage again. Then she held up her hand with all five fingers splayed.

Then only four.

Then three.

Two.

One.

“Lady, blessed Lady, who bestows upon mortals our more intimate pleasures. Ephemeral like us, a holy lesson to be learned from every lover’s embrace, they both began. Mara suspected the elf was reading a lot slower than she could have so Mara could keep up, and she appreciated it more than she could articulate.

“Lady, kind Lady, share your powers, so that I might use them to spread your blessings to others,” they continued, and Mara noticed that Ithella had replaced the word I with she. The elf was so kind, so gentle, so caring.

“Lady, beautiful Lady, let her bask in your brilliance, so that…” Ithella trailed off once she noticed Mara wasn’t speaking anymore. Mara could only stare at her with a smile on her face. “Femme d’Arme?” she cautiously asked.

“I love you,” Mara whispered back, still in the divine language.

“Mara, you need to—” But Mara shook her head. She was here because… because she wanted to serve Lady Ishara, right? She wanted to use her power to bring love and pleasure into this world, and guard as many as possible from grief and heartbreak. But… but how could she possibly be worthy of that power if she would deny herself the loving embrace of this gorgeous elf?

“You love me, too,” Mara told the elf. She didn’t doubt that for a second, but when the elven priestess nodded, it was still gratifying to have it confirmed. “So, let’s focus on that,” she said. “Lady Ishara won’t mind.”

With that, she leaned in, and pressed her lips to the elf’s as she started to run one hand up the priestess’ side. “I’ve missed you,” the priestess confessed.

“Me, too,” Mara easily agreed. “Months spent fighting in the name of your god. Let me reward you in the name of mine,” she said.

Ithella leaned back, slightly, and cautiously moved the incense to the side, allowing Mara to advance. There were big, cozy-looking pillows strewn about the large room, just as Mara had expected, and it didn’t take much effort to gather a few, and let them both get comfortable.

She pressed her lips to Ithella’s again, the priestess looking a mix of eager and bewildered, no doubt worrying Mara was throwing her future away with this diversion. But Mara knew better. She could practically see the places Ishara was indicating, telling her where she should kiss next, and Mara obediently followed the advice.

Mara trailed kisses down Ithella’s body, moving from her lips, to her chin, to her neck, to her chest, to her belly, and eventually between her legs. This is how I serve my Lady, she thought to herself as she replaced the kisses on Ithella’s womanhood with eager licks, lapping at the elf in that way she knew she adored.

She enjoyed every moment of it. She adored the little gasps and twitches Ithella let out, and she savored getting to smell and taste her beloved again. Gods, to think she might have been willing to try this ritual with anyone else. It would have been a waste.

“Mara?” Ithella asked. But Mara ignored it, instead continuing her holy work. She took one of Ithella’s hands into her own, letting the elf squeeze it to guide Mara through the act with gestures and nudges their years together had taught her to interpret as easily as she could read.

Mata knew Ithella was eager for this, wanted this every bit as badly as Mara herself did. She could feel it in the ways her lover squeezed her hand, could hear it in the elf’s blissful gasps. There was also the faintest hint of nervousness to it all; an undercurrent of worry that this wasn’t what Mara was supposed to be doing.

“M-Mara?” Ithella asked again. Whatever it was, it could wait. The elf was getting close to her climax, and Mara wasn’t about to let herself be distracted from giving it to her. So she kept up her barrage of licks and kisses, occasionally using the fingers of one hand when her tongue came up short.

It didn’t take much longer before Ithella was cursing and bucking her hips gently, telling Mara she’d succeeded in giving her lover a wonderful orgasm. “There,” she said, satisfied as she wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. “I… I think that…” Ithella’s wide eyes gave her pause, and she trailed off. “What is it?” She asked, and a few moments later, a gentle… nudge prodded her mind. The faintest urge to turn around.

A spirit of smoke knelt just behind her, the incense Ithella had lit now burning with pink and golden light, and the smoke feeding into the figure, giving it a defined shape. Feminine, with loose hair that came down to her navel, her eyes and the sigil on her chest both glowed that same pink and golden light of-

“Ishara,” Mara whispered, a dull smile forming on her face. Mara’s instinct was to bow before her, but the ephemeral form didn’t let her. She leaned forward, one hand on either of Mara’s cheeks, and kissed her.

I’m proud of you, Ishara’s thoughts were projected into Mara’s mind. They were harmonic, full of love, and somehow greater than Mara’s own. I’ve been looking forward to this for such a very long time.

Power flowed along that kiss. Mara could feel it. It was blissful, unspeakable, finally forging the bond to her goddess she’d so dearly craved all these years. It filled her, suffused her, was at her command, just as she was now at the goddess’. When the kiss broke, and Mara could feel that power linger within her, hers to keep, it was all she could think to say, “thank you.”

Thank you, Mara, her goddess’ voice boomed into her mind, infinite yet intimately familiar. Thank you for trusting me.

Behind her, Mara could hear Ithella moving, even saying something, but she couldn’t pay attention to it. Her goddess’ eyes were fixed squarely on her, and in the light of divine attention, everything else was dull.

Those eyes were so… so wise, and so familiar in a way. They looked into hers, enthralling, unspeakably captivating, and yet… There was something about Ishara, something that tickled her curiosity. She… she didn’t look like any of the statues. She looked different, like someone else Mara knew, but… but who?

“Who are you?” Mara whispered. The face of smoke and magic only smiled at the question, and stroked her cheek. Mara leaned into the loving gesture, and let out a contented sigh. The relief of having been accepted by her Lady and the potion both weighed heavily on her mind, both of them preventing her from answering her own question.

I am Ishara, the goddess’ voice came, louder than even Mara’s own thoughts, resonating with power and passion. Your patron, your friend, and your guide. Today, you’ve accomplished one of the hardest things a person can do, and now it is my will that you sleep, Mara De La Cerene. Sleep, and rest before the trials to come.

Mara’s eyelids grew suddenly heavy, and all she could do was nod. She… she’d earned the rest Ishara was offering, after years of studies. She let the hand on her cheek guide her back, soft and soothing, as she settled into the little den of pillows she and Ithella had assembled.

She watched as her Lady’s image reached and touched Ithella on the forehead. She whispered something Mara couldn’t hear, but she could feel the power of it, and watched the elf’s stunned and awe-struck expression melt into restful sleep as she slumped back into the pillows.

There was still something so familiar, something soothing about this all. A sense of… of déjà vu at seeing the loving smile on her face as she easily lulled both of them to sleep. She reminded her of… of…

Mara’s wits failed her before she could finish the thought, and sleep claimed her.